The Sheikh's Impatient Virgin by Kim Lawrence Read Free Book Online

even remember the pleasure he was about to pay so dearly for—that part of the night remained a total blank.
    The same could not be said for all of the night. A brooding frown on his face, he walked to the window and glanced downat the street below. Any faint hopes he nurtured that this specific section of intact memory was not real died an instant death.
    The stationary car opposite was depressingly real. He turned away and wondered how long it would take for the information his granddaughter had spent the night with Karim Al-Nasr to reach King Hassan.
    Of the King’s reaction there was no similar question. While the ruler of Azharim was not a man who was averse to change, tradition and honour were two things he placed highly. Karim had offered him an insult and only one response would make that insult forgivable.
    Karim closed his eyes and, his expression harsh with selfrecrimination, wondered if there was a fatal flaw in his makeup.
    Was he preordained to make the same mistake over and over again? Recognising the self-pity insidiously creeping into his thinking, he pushed away the thought, firm in his belief such a mindset was for men who could not accept responsibility for their own actions.
    No excuses, no extenuating circumstances and no amount of extraordinary red hair changed the fact he had messed up and he would pay.
    The depth of his own stupidity was still hard for him to fully grasp. He inhaled through flared nostrils and, exerting the control that had let him down the previous night, he pushed away a subject he had no time to explore right now and estimated how long it would take him to get to the hospital.
    He found his jacket and retrieved the phone from the pocket, punched in a number while shrugging on his shirt. The dampness brought back the memory of rain…and walking.
    Tariq picked up immediately.
    Karim, his shoulder hunched to hold the phone while he buttoned his shirt, was thrown by the deep sigh of relief that reverberated down the line. His calm and ultra-composed right hand then threw him some more when Tariq proceeded tolaunch into a breathless emotional monologue that inexplicably involved a central theme of choked, almost tearful self-recrimination.
    When he began to repeat himself Karim, bemused by the uncharacteristic overreaction, felt it time to interrupt.
    ‘I’m sorry I gave Security the slip, but you are hardly responsible for that, and I am no longer a child, Tariq.’ Tariq, who had known him since he was assigned bodyguard duty when Karim was ten, sometimes had to be gently reminded of this. ‘I can look after myself.’ Though after last night this was open to debate.
    Far from being soothed, Tariq appeared even more agitated when he replied, ‘When the room was discovered empty we did not know where you had gone and I thought…This is my fault. I am so sorry. I did what I thought was best.’
    Karim’s bemused frown deepened. ‘Best?’
    ‘You recall that sedation…the sleeping draft the hospital doctor prescribed…’
    ‘I recall throwing it away.’ Karim was not a fan of quick fixes and even less of numbed emotions. He would face what he must with all his wits about him and sleep, when it came, would be natural, not drug-induced.
    ‘I retrieved it.’
    ‘You retrieved it,’ Karim echoed, his tone neutral as the last piece of the puzzle he hadn’t known existed clicked into place in his head.
    It was a very loud click! And things made more sense. Not that being drugged counted as a ‘get out of jail’ card when applied to sleeping with a royal princess of a close political ally.
    ‘Yes, and I put it in the tea.’
    Karim exhaled. The tea…at least now he knew why he had been wandering the streets. It had not been temporary insanity brought on by stress; it had been drugs!
    ‘I was most afraid that you had come to some harm…’
    You have no idea, old friend, Karim thought, pressing thephone to his chest. He knew it would be a mistake to speak at that moment